Tuesday, 8 November 2016

As many pay homage to Susan B. Anthony, Bronx’s Woodlawn Cemetery wants to provide a similar service

It’s Election Day, which means that, in keeping with tradition, woman from all over Rochester will be swinging by Susan B. Anthony’s grave site at Mt. Hope Cemetery in upstate New York, paying homage to the pioneering suffragette and adding “I Voted” stickers to her tombstone. And this year, Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx is getting in on the action, reports the New York Times.

Woodlawn, after all, has a feminist pedigree of its own: it’s home to the grave sites of four other big-name suffragettes. (It should be noted that the movement’s history is not without its own problems; here’s a good read on that subject.) Elizabeth Cady Stanton, who, with Anthony, co-founded the National Woman Suffrage Association, is buried there, as is Carrie Chapman Catt (founder of the League of Women Voters), Mary Garret Hay (Catt’s assistant and advisor), and Alva Vanderbilt Belmont (multimillionaire activist). Why not give them the same treatment?

David Ison, Woodlawn’s executive director, told the Times that the cemetery adopted the idea after seeing Anthony’s grave site trending on social media. Plus, they felt this election season needed something positive. “We thought, ‘We’re going to do something that’s not all about Trump and all about Clinton,’” he said.

And so they have. The cemetery has placed big cardboard signs next to each grave and is encouraging people to come by to stick stickers and snap selfies in honor of women’s right to vote. (While yes, it is somewhat less satisfying, the cemetery requests that visitors please please keep their stickers off the actual tombstones.)

While Mt. Hope is expecting so many visitors that they’ve extended their election day hours, Woodlawn has yet to see the tradition really take off. But there’s still time: the Bronx cemetery has extended its visiting days for the occasion, inviting people to add their stickers through Sunday.

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